Avoiding

I just looked back at my posts and found that I have not done a post entirely dedicated to avoiding, which I find ironic. Of course, I would avoid writing about my avoiding. Many time I have said to myself that I am not good at anything but I was so wrong! I am fantastic at avoiding. It is something I have practiced since I was eight, and a practice I have held onto with a death grip ever since.

I  avoid many things but most importantly, I avoid looking at myself and seeing the whole of me. I only want to look at the good side of me and never the bad side of me. The bad side of me has a good sized list of things I have and haven't done that are distasteful and mean so I push it away.

It seems to me that this is the main source of my depression. If I will not look at the whole of me, I cannot change anything that makes me feel bad about myself. As of now, I have not been willing to really look at myself and thus change. This is ruining me yet     . . .                 I do nothing.

Yeah pretty good at avoiding , huh?

Do you avoid also?  How do you deal with it?

It is safe to say that avoiding things about yourself you don't like isn't going to help.

Let's all pledge to stop avoiding what needs to be addressed. I know, it seems hard, yet I bet you are like me (if you are an avoider) and you are making it more complicated than it really is in reality. I know I will struggle with this because I make things more complicated than they really are yet I can see the writing on the wall; its not what I want for my future. Thus I must stop avoiding. Period.

Hugs!!

What Do I Know?

I know that sounds like a personal insult but its not. What I mean by the title of this post is that I need to question what I think I know. I have been living with the influence of depression for many years thus it seems pretty likely that some of what I think about life is not based in reality.

I have had a hard time pushing my self to do the things I want to that are good for me, and allow me to feel good about myself. Many times, I see doing those things as a burden.  Doing good things for myself like doing yoga is a burden? Weird, huh? Also, many times I start doing good things like yoga and then stop. Both of these ways of thinking are depressive in nature and not healthy for me. So I have been trying to keep up with the things I want to do to take care of myself. I am not doing a lot of these things because I am still focusing on identifying whenever my depressive thoughts occur. But I am seeing that my focus can be on one thing, like looking at myself and the occurrences of depressive thinking, and also further myself along in my goals.

How do you handle taking care of yourself? Do you avoid taking care of yourself and busy yourself with other things?

On another note, yet related, I am saddened and angered at the suicide of Robin Williams. He suffered from depression and apparently had recently learned he had Parkinson's disease, and although all of that is quite a burden, I think he should have found a way to see the reasons he had to live. Depression is heavy and hard to deal with YET it is not a reason to take your life. I do not believe suicide is a sin; that is not where this thought is coming from. I actually believe if someone's quality of life has gotten really bad, that they should be able to end their life. But that does not seem to be the case for Mr. Williams. My heart goes out to his family. They are now the ones left with the burden of his absence.

Take care of yourself!! :)

I Under Estimate Its Sneakiness

The weird thing about depression is it sneakiness. :)  What I mean by this is that if I am not vigilant about what is going on with me and how I am choosing to live each day, each hour, then my depression will continue to be created and fed.

I have not been learning the skills needed to cope with and fight depression but I can and I will. The only reason depression can sneak up on me is because I deny its in my life.

OMG !! Writing this has been awkward and not clear. Blah . . .  Ok that's all for now basically.

How about you- does depression ever seem to "sneak up" on you?

Hope you are well  and in good spirits. :)

Depressive Thinking

I mentioned a workbook a few posts back, Antidepressant Skills Workbook, that I have been working with, and I wanted to share part of it with you. There is a section about Depressive Thinking and the antithesis, Realistic Thinking. I have been learning about the most common kinds of depressive thinking and what thinking in the opposite way looks like. Flashcards work for me to remember new vocabulary or in this case, phrases. I want to know each of these without having to refer to the book because I am tracking the frequency of these kinds of thoughts to help me be self-aware of how I am thinking. After thinking in depressive manners for so long, I usual don't see that I am having depressive thoughts. I am trying to see myself more clearly and see what patterns there are in my thinking so I am marking down in a little notebook each time I or my husband notices me thinking in one of these depressive ways. It will take time for me to get practiced at noticing it; I will get it. :)


So below is an excerpt from the workbook I mentioned. Its a long excerpt, but I think its worth a  read. You may be surprised to find that you, too, are sometimes thinking depressive thoughts. I have a lot of check marks in the Mind Reading one listed below.

Alrighty lovely people; I hope you are well and in good spirits!! Hugs!!


"Learn to identify depressive thoughts

Depressive thoughts are unfair and unrealistic. They are distorted because they are inaccurate reflections of how the world is or how you are. The table below describes some common forms of distorted thinking in depression.

Filtering.
In this kind of depressive thinking, you only look at the bad, never the good. Because all you see is the negative side, your whole life appears to be negative. But realistic thinking equally considers positive and negative aspects of your life.

Overgeneralization.
In this kind of depressive thinking, one negative event seems like the start of a never-ending pattern. If one friend leaves, they all will. If you fail the first time, you’ll fail every time. But realistic thinking recognizes that one disappointing situation does not determine how other situations will turn out.

All or Nothing Thinking.
You see the world in terms of extremes. You are either fat or thin, smart or stupid, tidy or a slob, depressed or joyful, and so on. There is no in-between. Gradual progress is never enough because only a complete change will do. “Who cares that I did half of it? It’s still not finished!” But realistic thinking sees people and events as falling somewhere between the extremes, towards the middle, where most things are found.

Catastrophizing.
A small disappointment is seen as though it were a disaster. For example, you were slightly late in completing a small project, so your entire month is ruined: you react to the imagined catastrophe (a terrible month) rather than to the little event (a late project). But realistic thinking sees events in their true importance, not overemphasizing negative events.

Labeling.
You talk to yourself in a harsh way, calling yourself names like “idiot”, “loser”, or whatever the worst insults are for you. You talk to yourself in a way you would never talk to anyone else. But realistic thinking doesn't use these kind of insults because they are not fair, you wouldn't talk to anyone else that way, and they are unnecessarily discouraging.

Mind-reading.
You feel as though you know what others are thinking about you, and it’s always negative. So you react to what you imagine they think, without bothering to ask. But realistic thinking recognizes that guessing what others think about you is likely to be inaccurate, especially when you are depressed.

Fortune-telling.
You feel as though you know what the future will bring, and it’s negative. Nothing will work out, so why bother trying? But realistic thinking recognizes that you don’t know how things will turn out: by staying open to the possibility of positive results, you’ll be more hopeful and more likely to make things better.

Perfectionism.
It’s only good enough if it’s perfect. And because you can’t make most things perfect, you’re rarely satisfied and can rarely take pride in anything. But realistic thinking gives credit for accomplishments, even if the result is less than perfect. Few of us reach perfection in what we do, but our achievements are meaningful.

Shoulds.
You think that you know how the world should be, and it isn't like that. You know what you should be like, and you aren't. Result: You are constantly disappointed and angry with yourself and with everyone around you. But realistic thinking understands the limitations of the world and of yourself — trying for improvement but also accepting how things are.

There are other types of depressive thinking, but these are some of the most common ones. When you catch yourself thinking depressingly, it can be useful to look at this list to see if you are using one of them."

Copies of this book can be downloaded at no cost from: www.bcmhas.ca or www.carmha.ca/publications.

Antidepressant Skills Workbook
by Randy Paterson PhD & Dan Bilsker PhD

So What's Going On With You? :)

I was checking my stats for this blog today, and I thought I would throw out an idea to anyone who might read this blog.

This blog is about me figuring out and the logging of my journey of dealing with my depression. Yet it occurred to me that it could be something else, too.

I am inviting anyone who reads this blog to share their own thoughts about their life, about depression, about joys, about anything you think someone else could benefit from reading. Share your story and help someone else not feel alone in their experience.

This came to me today because it is true that I am afraid of my depression.  I have some incorrect notions about what it means to be a person who suffers from depression, thus I am scared that if I admit I am depressed, it means I am bizarre and abnormal, and that makes me uncomfortable. :(

So if we all share more about ourselves with others, then we can feel less odd and alone in our world. I may not do a blog post very often, but I check for new comments everyday. SO if you leave your story, I will get it into the comments asap.

Personally, I have followed my self-destructive patterns again of starting something new and then putting it aside. I am not giving up though; I am assessing what I've been doing (with help form my amazing husband), revisiting my workbook, and adjusting what I have been doing that is not on target with the goals I have set.

Shit, reading that last part back makes me sound like I know what I am doing; far from it. I am blessed with a husband who is really on my side and is willing to call me on my bullshit. Thank all things big and small!!

Okay, so don't give up! I won't either.

Share what ever you'd like about you and your experience. Let's help each other!!

Hugs!!

Hi all! Since its been a while since the last post I wanted to just say a quick hello. I am continuing to learn about and work on my depression. I am beginning to see the patterns that have come from depression and am trying to break those patterns. A work in progress. :)

 I hope you are all doing well. Drop me a line and let me know how you are doing. Connections with others help me, and I know it can help others as well.

HUGS!!

Seeing The Tendrils of Depression

I have seen over the past few years that depression has a sneaky way of being all over the place and hard to detect just exactly where it will show up next. Its like depression is an octopus with a million legs that just worm their way out of or into so many unexpected parts of my life.  It really has been one of the biggest challenges of rising above the cloud of depression because I never know when the next moment of depression will arise.

This morning William and I were having breakfast, and I was talking about going out to lunch today with a friend of mine. She asked me to meet her at her house and so I assumed that she wanted us to drive to lunch together. All I have been thinking about since she said suggested and I agreed to meeting her at her house is how I can logically get out of driving together to lunch. Weird, huh? I mean I want to hang out with her and has some time to chat, but I just didn't want to drive together. Of course, I came up with the fact that I need to do errands after lunch. As I am talking with William this morning, I realized, "Oh there is depression again."  I have learned through years of being depressed that driving in a car with someone requires talking and allows for no escapes if something gets uncomfortable. Depression in my life has made this kind of thinking okay. This is not who I really am inside; I like talking with people, and it is only my depression that creeps in and makes me think I can't or don't want to be in this situation.

I am not my depression but man, it can be hard sometimes to see the difference, especially because I have lived with depression for so long. With it being in my life since I was 8 or so, I often get confused and feel that the depression is who I am, not a reaction to the life I lived as a child. So this morning's talk with William again helped me to see me, and really, I like me when I let her out to play and don't let the depression be me.

I am going to ride to lunch with my friend and not worry about what will happen. She is a fun person to hang out with and so am I, so it sounds like a recipe for fun to me!!

Thank you so much for stopping by and reading about me. :) I hope you are well and in good spirits! Remember to take care of you because no one can do it as well as you can!!!!!!!!!!

Hugs!!